NBA Fines And Non-Compliance Lessons for SMBs

Image of an arrangement with money, gavel, calculator, and contract illustrating the consequences of non-compliance with laws, rules, and regulations.

NBA Fines And Non-Compliance Lessons for SMBs

Regulations on the local, state, and federal levels are on the rise and this is putting a lot of pressure on compliance efforts of Small and Medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and exposing the fact that these organizations can only avoid costly fines and/or lawsuits for non-compliance by maintaining strict compliance throughout their information management processes.

I found the fines levied by the National Basketball Association (NBA) on players including the likes of the late Los Angeles Lakers Great, Kobe Bryant, and Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, among others, as a good lesson on the cost of non-compliance.

The NBA has consistently fined players who were in non-compliance of its rules and these violations range from the serious to what one could argue is the absurd – like kicking a ball in frustration or throwing a basketball into the stands in celebration of a win.

Read more

Share

Remote Work Security: Shield Team Members from Cyber Threats

Image of remote work employees in different locations like under tree, in hammock, home on sofa with laptop etc.

Introduction

The concept of working from home, or remote work, has become more prevalent than ever before. While it offers convenience and flexibility, it also presents unique challenges, with one of the most pressing being the constant threat of cyberattacks. Cyber criminals are actively evolving their tactics to exploit vulnerabilities in remote work setups.

To safeguard your remote employees, it is crucial to ensure that their digital workspace is protected.

In this article, we will explore the significance of securing remote employees from cyber threat actors and provide actionable mitigation steps in an easily understandable format.

Why Protecting Remote Work Employees is Crucial

The shift to remote work has led to an increase in the attempts by cyber criminals to look for, and exploit vulnerabilities, thus making it imperative to safeguard your remote workforce.

Here are a few reasons why:

Read more

Share

Business Tech Problems: Options for Austin, Texas Area Printers

Image of workers and equipment in a commercial printing house.

With the ever increasingly rapid advance in information technology, many small businesses in the Austin, Texas area, especially commercial printing companies, face overwhelming business tech problems.

Now more than ever, we depend on technology to run our business (and our lives). When the “Internet goes down,” most businesses are at a standstill until they are back online, costing thousands of dollars in lost productivity and sales.

It’s not just the BIG business tech problems, but things like file access, password protection, being able to print and recovering files or versions of files that were accidentally overwritten or deleted. All of these business tech problems are common needs in today’s technology-heavy enterprises.

Read more

Share

Device as a Service: How To Simplify IT Hardware Replacements

Device as a service computer hardware components

Device as a Service offers complete IT hardware, software, and services solution for a regular predictable monthly fee.

The business environment is changing, even more so in these past few months of a health pandemic. Business owners and leaders want to pay for exactly what they want, when they want it, and eliminate unnecessary waste. They no longer want mass market products but complete customization to fit their specific needs.

Due to this increasing demand for customization, new business models have arisen to accommodate them, and the consumption model will naturally continue to spread into nontraditional industries.

What is the Technology Lifecycle?

A technology lifecycle is technically defined as the span of a product’s existence from its initial development through the period of marketing and active use to eventual obsolescence. It is the beginning to end process of acquiring, installing, maintaining, tracking and the retirement of an asset in a business environment. These assets could be servers, laptops, desktop computer, tablets, or mobile phones.

Typically, a technology’s lifecycle can be extended through ongoing maintenance, updates and upgrades. Upon reaching the end of its most effective stage, the IT lifecycle moves to replacement, decommission and salvage.

For organizations large and small, refreshing a fleet of personal computing devices every 3 to 4 years can involve substantial costs, especially when considering peripheral expenditures for procurement, deployment, training, support, recovery, and asset management.

This is where Device as a Service, commonly known as DaaS comes in.

Read more

Share

7 Ways to Secure Microsoft 365 Office for Business

Microsoft 365 Office Applications

Most small or medium-size organizations today are using, or migrating to one of Microsoft’s 365 suite of applications. With the recent shift to remote work, and the attendant increase in the use of collaboration tools included with Office 365 business plans, organizations are bound to be targeted by cyber criminals and hackers.

More critically, due to the speed of these deployments, many small organizations may not be fully equipped to consider the security configurations of the cloud-based platforms they are migrating to.

There are continued instances where businesses and organizations, especially those in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) category are not implementing best security practices in regard to their Microsoft Office 365 implementation.

The ultimate result, inevitably, will be the increased vulnerability of these environments to attacks by threat actors or hackers.

If you are in charge of securing the technology infrastructure and applications used in your organization, you can use the guidance in this article to increase the security of your Microsoft 365 Office Suite deployments.

Read more

Share

Remote Working: 3 Ways Technology Can Close The Productivity Gap

People in various remote working scenarios

Now, more than ever, we’re seeing a rapid change in the way the world does business, and where the world does business from, making technology more essential than ever. And when it comes to getting work done, 71% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) use desktops as their primary computer, which can make working at home or remote working, a huge challenge for many and has greatly increased the demand for mobile, work-from-home devices.

If there’s one thing that current events have shown, it is that nothing will be the same again. In particular, the way we work. The new workforce, now spanning the different work styles of five generations, has already changed the way our businesses are organized.

Our workplaces have to be far more flexible.

Remote workplaces need to support the shiny, new technologies we’re increasingly used to as consumers, while delivering the superior performance and reliability that business demands. Work is no longer a designated space in the office but an activity that we do, when and where we choose, whether that’s a coffee shop or in a home office.

Read more

Share
Share
Share